Space Between Us
by melissaeverdeen13
Summary: As Jackson and April adjust to their relationship becoming one that is solely based around Harriet, it becomes clear how easy it is to miss someone even if they're sitting on the same couch.


"Smile, Harriet!" I say, pointing my phone's camera at my newly 6-month-old baby laying on a blanket amongst all her toys. "Smile for mama!"

She flaps her arms up and down and makes a loud gurgling sound, but not even so much as a smirk finds its way to her lips.

"Come on, baby," I say, kneeling next to her. "I need a six-month picture. Smile big. Please?" I adjust the blanket under her so the "6 months" label can be clearly seen in the photo and then try again, but she still won't smile. I say every funny word I can think of, and when Jackson walks in I've resorted to fake-sneezing in attempts to make her laugh.

He chuckles. "What in the world are you doing?" he asks, coming over to stand next to where I'm kneeling.

I crane my neck and look up at him. "Trying to get her to smile," I grumble.

"What for?" he asks, creasing his eyebrows together almost amusedly.

I gesture to the circular sticker on her blanket. "She's six months old today," I say. "I have to get a picture."

He laughs. "You _have_ to get a picture?"

"Yes."

"You absolutely have to."

I bite a small section of my lower lip and grow mildly impatient. "Yes, Jackson, it's important. It's going in her first-year memory book. It should be important to you, too." I look up at him and see that he's had his eyes focused on me with heavy concentration; his lips pulled up in the corners, teasing the beginnings of a smile.

"Alright, then," he says. "What's the holdup, then? Get this munchkin to smile."

I sigh. "She won't. I need a perfect picture, and she…" I stop talking when Jackson gets down on his knees and starts grinning and waving at Harriet, which makes her squeal with happiness and flash a gummy smile.

I snap the picture, albeit begrudgingly.

"Okay, that is so completely not fair," I say, resting back on my heels and looking at the photo.

"What can I say?" Jackson muses, looking at me smugly. "She's her daddy's girl."

I purse my lips and then put my hands gently on Harriet's chest. "No, you're mama's girl, right?" I jiggle her a little bit and she gurgles and babbles, which makes little spit bubbles fly up into my face.

"Mama's girl who spits in her mama's face," Jackson laughs.

"Shut up," I say, then look at the picture I snapped. "I got a good one. That's what matters."

He stands up and walks out of the room, only after throwing over one last look over his shoulder. "Thanks to me," he says with a grin.

I watch him leave and raise my eyebrows at the back of his head, wondering who in the world he thinks he is. I open my mouth, meaning to throw some lighthearted banter at him, but nothing comes to mind. He's too far away now, anyway, and wouldn't hear me.

I watch Harriet stick a rattle in her mouth and can't help but start to think about her father. She definitely has my darker eyes, but when she's frustrated and about to cry, the facial expressions she makes are all his. I giggle to myself, inadvertently thinking about Jackson as a pouty baby, and Harriet's looks over at me with a tiny smile about to appear on her lips. I shake my head at her and poke her little belly, jokingly scolding her for being such a tease.

"You like to make me look silly in front of Daddy, don't you?" I ask her, lifting her from the floor and onto my lap. "You both love to make me look silly. I know. It runs in your genes."

Living with Jackson has proved to be a bit easier after we laid everything out on the table. I don't feel so much like a houseguest or like I have to take care of everything anymore, but I do feel like I'm treading the fine line between being comfortable and _too_ comfortable.

Before everything, at the end of the night when we were home and not at the hospital, we used to sit on the couch and watch whatever was on TV, all wrapped up in each other. Usually our closeness would lead to other things; other things that neither of us objected against. I always looked forward to ending my long days with him. No matter how tired I was, I knew that we would come home to each other and the few hours together would be a much-needed reprieve from a grueling day.

Now, though, it's different. We take turns putting Harriet down around 7:30, knowing that she'll get up again a few hours later to eat, but that time has stuck as a part of her schedule. After she's asleep, we both gravitate to the couch but are nowhere near wrapped up in each other anymore. He sits at one end and I sit at the other with my legs curled up to my side, leaning on the armrest. Sometimes we talk about work, sometimes we talk about the baby, but most of the time we don't talk at all.

I hate the silence more than anything. Not because it's uncomfortable or tense, because it's actually neither of those things. It's comfortable and relaxing, but it's just not us. The distance isn't us, either, and I know he knows that too. The distance - that whole, long couch between us - feels forced and expected. We're divorced, but co-parenting. The distance is what we need. I feel like both of us are trying to follow a rulebook that doesn't exist.

I know boundaries are important, but I miss him.

I miss walking in the door and seeing him from the back, standing in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove. I miss walking over and wrapping my arms around him, linking my fingers together just above his belt buckle, and resting my head between his shoulder blades to just breathe him in for a second. I miss him pulling me around so we can face each other and then cradling my face in his hands, just looking at me and studying me before he presses his lips to mine. I miss the mundane things. I miss the little moments more than anything else.

It's harder to admit, but I miss sex, too. Not just the physical part - though that's part of it. I miss the intimacy, the inability to be any closer to him than I already am, the feeling of not a single person in the world being able to see me as he does. I don't know if I'll ever get that feeling with someone else; and even if I get close, it won't be the same. He was my first. He will always be my first.

This place used to be our home. We shared everything here, but now it doesn't feel like that. Now, it's just a house we both live in with our baby because we have to, and I don't know if I can do anything to change that. I want to, but I don't know if he does.

The dating phase was short-lived and painful. We both tried with different people and forced smiles for each other. It was all a poorly painted facade, and without saying it in such plain language, we both knew it. So we stopped, and just started existing like we normally would. Not together, but alongside one another.

No one at the hospital asks about us anymore, and I'm glad about that. I don't know what I would say; I don't know where I would begin, but I do know that whatever this is is best kept contained between Jackson and me. When other people get involved, that's when it gets messy. And it doesn't need to get messier than it already is.

"Okay, baby," I say, standing up with Harriet in my arms. "Let's go get that picture printed, and we can stick it right in your book." I walk out of the nursery and she babbles nonsensically as she pulls on my hair. "Ow. Thank you for that. I just have to get changed out of these clothes, and we'll go on a little field trip. Sound fun?"

I set her down in her boppy pillow that's almost always permanently on the bed, and then give her a handful of crinkly baby paper. It keeps her entertained while I search for a decent outfit that isn't gray sweatpants and a ratty blue sweatshirt from college.

I ramble about nothing to Harriet while I get changed, and don't even hear the footsteps behind me when Jackson comes in.

"Oh, jeez, I'm sorry," he says, and I flip around at the sound of his voice. I have a pair of dark skinny jeans on my lower half, but my top half is bare save for the sky blue bra that I just put on.

"Oh god, you scared me," I breathe, one hand to my heart. It takes one more beat to realize that I'm underdressed around him - we aren't us anymore, so Jackson seeing me in less than a shirt is considered not okay according to our unspoken rules.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," he says, and turns his back. "I just came in here, to uh… to…"

"I got a shirt on. I'm decent," I say, fumbling for the floral long sleeve that I set by the baby. "Sorry about that."

"You don't have to apologize; I burst in, it was my fault…"

"Well, still, you didn't know-"

"I should've knocked-"

"I should've had the door closed; with it open like that, you couldn't have…"

We both stop talking and cutting each other off and lock eyes. A strange, quiet moment passes, and then we both break out in apologetic, embarrassed smiles. Not that long ago, if he would've walked in as I stood in my bra, he would've brushed on by without a word in passing. It was routine then; second nature. It didn't used to be a big deal for him to see me in less than everyone else does. And now… well, now look what we've come to.

There's an ache in my chest that I will away, but of course it persists. I want us to feel comfortable seeing each other like we used to. Even more, I want us to feel excited by it. But instead, when he finds me in my bra, all he feels is awkward.

"I was just about to, um, take the baby and print the picture out at Walgreen's," I say, adjusting the hem of my shirt. I pick Harriet up out of her boppy and hand her a pacifier.

"Oh, okay," he says. "Here, take this." He walks over to a pile of her toys and picks out a crunchy toy bunny. "She likes this one in the car. I've found that out recently."

I smile first at the toy, then at him. "Okay," I chuckle. "Thanks. We won't be long."

"Need help buckling the seat in?" he asks. "It's in my car. I totally forgot; from when I took her to see Owen. I'll go get it out and switch it to yours."

"Are you sure?" I ask, following him after slipping my ankle boots on. "I can do it. It's not that big of a deal."

"No, it's fine," he throws over his shoulder, grabbing his keys. "I don't mind."

I stand with Harriet in my arms as he switches the car seat from his car to mine, watching his back muscles shift and stand out under the material of his gray t-shirt. A sliver of skin above the waist of his jeans peeks out as he leans inside the back seat, and I have to deliberately avert my eyes away. I won't let my thoughts go there.

He stands up once everything is all situated and brushes himself off. "Baby please," he says, outstretching his arms. I hand Harriet over and he gets her buckled in tight.

"Do you wanna come?" I ask, hitching my purse up on my shoulder.

He takes a moment longer than necessary to decide. "Um, no," he says. "I'm okay here. You guys just go. Mommy daughter thing."

"Right," I say, politely smiling and resting my hand on the hood of the car. "Mommy daughter. Well, we'll be back."

I drive to Walgreen's and Harriet falls asleep on the way there. She's so gone that when I park and lift her out of her seat, she doesn't so much as stir. I hold my sleep-heavy baby on my chest with her head resting on my shoulder, and make my way inside the store. I find the photo counter and the clerk behind it takes a second to notice me, but when she does she walks right over.

"Hi, can I help you?" she asks. I can see that her name is Reed, according to her nametag. It makes my eyes glaze over for just a second as I refresh those memories from all the years back of my best friend who probably today, wouldn't even recognize me. It jars me out of my own mind, thinking about how you never really notice how much you've change until you think about yourself from someone else's point of view. "Ma'am?" Her voice snaps me out of my reverie and I smile cordially. "Can I help you?" she asks again.

"Hi, yeah," I say. "I have a photo pickup."

She turns her back to the little basket that holds the white envelopes full of photos. "Name?"

"Kepner. April. April Kepner."

She leafs through the pile and then comes back to me with a pretty thick handful. She pulls the photos out of their sheath and I can see the one that I took of Harriet just a little bit ago on top, and a bunch more that I chose to print, too. A few of me and Harriet, she and her daddy, and an old one of all three of us when she was a newborn dressed in a pink outfit are all in the beginning of the stack. "These look alright?" Reed asks. Below the ones she showed me as a sample are at least fifty more of just Harriet doing various, mundane things that definitely needed to be caught on camera and memorialized in her first-year book.

I flick my eyes up from the pictures so I can meet hers. "Yes," I say. "They look great."

She puts them in a pile and back into the envelope. As I'm inserting my card into the machine so it can read my chip, she speaks again. "You have a beautiful family," she says. I look up up from typing in my pin so I can glance at her. She looks sheepish and a bit ashamed to have said it, but keeps talking. "I just wanted you to know. You, your husband, your baby…" She can't resist a smile now. "You're lucky."

My first instinct is to be flustered and upset that she's commenting on my life, but I can't make myself feel that way. I feel a connection to her - undoubtedly because of her name - and her words are, for some reason, welcome. I hold them close and don't bother in correcting her about what role Jackson plays in relation to me.

"Thank you," I say, slipping the photos into my purse. "That means a lot."

She nods and shrugs one shoulder. "Have a nice day," she says.

"You, too," I respond, and then walk out of the store feeling all warm and fuzzy. I sit in the car for a little while before starting it up, occasionally looking back at Harriet still sleeping peacefully in the car seat. The toy that Jackson insisted she take is resting on the seat next to her, untouched. I smile and shake my head as I think about how much he wanted her to have it.

 _You, your husband, your baby… you're lucky._

Her words play over and over in my head, and I'm about to back out of my parking space when I hear my phone buzzing from a text in my purse. When the screen comes to life, I see that it's from Jackson.

 **Hey. while youre at the store can u pick up some water chestnuts? Making stir fry tonight and my famous stir fry is definitely not the same w/out those**

I text him back saying that I will, and go through the whole rigmarole of getting a still-sleeping Harriet out of her seat and into my arms again. I scour the aisles of Walgreen's for water chestnuts of all things, and luckily find them just as I was about to give up hope and go somewhere else. I pay, and after spending much more time out of the house than I had originally planned, I get us both in the car and head back.

When I pull up in the driveway, I somehow manage to balance the baby and groceries without toppling over on the way inside the apartment. When I nudge the door open with my hip, I can smell the stir fry, but the half-wall prevents me from seeing Jackson making it. I can still hear him, though.

"Hey," he calls out.

"Hey," I say, and even I can hear the weird way my voice sounds.

"You good?" he asks, though we still can't see each other. I'm headed in the direction of the nursery, my back faced towards him.

"I'm fine," I say. "Of course I'm fine. I'm...great."

I hear him make a sound between a scoff and a chuckle, and then I disappear into Harriet's room. I change her into pajamas, knowing that she'll be up again soon because she's been snoozing for so long already. She's going to need a change any minute it seems like, but she may as well be comfortable until that moment comes. I lay her down in her crib, make sure the volume on the baby monitor is turned up, and then leave the room.

I pick up the bag of groceries where I left them and head towards the kitchen. I let out a long breath and as I take another one in, it hitches in my throat and the sight in front of me makes me stop dead in my tracks.

It wouldn't be anything special to anyone else, but to me it's everything. Where I stand a few feet away from the breakfast bar, holding a light bag of groceries in one hand, I'm staring at Jackson's back. He's standing at the stove, meticulously manipulating his stir fry that's sizzling in the pan on the range, his weight leaned over to one hip and the hand that isn't holding the spatula resting on the counter. I watch him for what seems like forever; my eyes trailing down his body from the angle of his neck to the shift of his hips, all the way down to his socked feet. He's wearing the Gold Toe ones today, which have to be the ones I bought for him. He's used to much more expensive socks, but when he asked me to pick some up for him, Gold Toe were what I knew. The memory of coming home and tossing the pack at him is so vivid it's like it happened yesterday. He had ripped the plastic open and put a pair on, then forced me into a pair, too. They were so big on me and we had laughed our heads off, and somehow he'd ended up on top of me on the couch that I can see from where I'm standing, and it didn't take long for me to end up in nothing but those stupid socks.

"Jackson?" I say, and my voice comes out as a strangled-sounding, waterlogged peep. I had no idea I was about to cry, but it doesn't really surprise me. Seeing him stand right there brings back everything, even more than I thought possible.

He flips around quickly with a concerned, alert expression on his face, all the while still holding the spatula. He asks me what the problem is without using any words - he doesn't have to. It's all in his eyes.

"I'm really not fine," I admit, contradicting my sentiment from just moments ago.

I walk closer to him and set the Walgreen's bag down on the breakfast bar. His eyes dart to it and skim over the can of water chestnuts and the white photo sleeve, but then he looks back at me. At this point, I'm next to the dishwasher and only about a foot away from him. "Okay, what's wrong?" he asks.

I don't get a chance to answer him. The moment our eyes lock, we both know what's about to happen and neither of us are fighting it. There's no hope in fighting it; this has been begging to happen for months now. He can hardly get the entirety of the word 'wrong' out before his hands are at my neck, pushing my hair away from my face so our lips can meet. Kissing him is something that I could never forget how to do. I wrap my arms around his waist and pull my hips flush to his, and he skims his hands from my neck down to the small of my back. He slips them up under my shirt to grip my bare skin, and then lifts me up onto the counter from there.

His hands are everywhere, all over me. My ribcage, the undersides of my breasts, my throat, anchored in my hair at the base of my skull. With my eyes closed and my lips still pressed against his, I drape my arms over his shoulders and let them rest there. I don't let my mind wander to anything besides the way that his lips feel against mine and the way that his hands feel exploring my body like he doesn't already know it by heart.

He has two fistfuls of my shirt ready to pull up over my head when the baby monitor lights up across the counter with the sound of Harriet's 'change-my-diaper' cries. We break apart and gasp like we've been caught doing something illicit, at first flinching and then melting into each other more comfortably. Our foreheads rest against each other and, while looking directly into each other's eyes, we start to laugh.

Things feel just like they used to. I resist the urge to pinch myself to prove that this is actually real. It's too good; too simple, too easy.

"I'll go get her," I say, and hop down from the counter. "Um, water chestnuts are in the bag." I nod towards the discarded thing on the counter and he nods curtly.

"Got it," he says, and gives me a smile that I can't interpret.

I go into Harriet's room and find her fussing in her crib, so I lift her out and change her into something clean. I bring her out, bouncing her in my arms as I tentatively rejoin Jackson in the kitchen.

"Were all like, 900 of these photos necessary to print?" he asks, raising his eyebrows as he looks up from the bunch of photos I came back with. He's flipping through them, shaking his head.

"Okay, maybe I went a little overboard," I say, shrugging.

"Maybe," he says, eyeing me.

"Yes, maybe."

"Obsessed," he mutters, and snorts.

"How can you not be obsessed with this?" I ask, and hold Harriet towards him. He lifts her out of my arms and kisses her cheeks, which makes her squeal at a decibel only a baby can reach.

"Got me there," he says. "Here, go back to Mama, little baby. Daddy's gonna finish dinner."

I take Harriet back and exchange a quick glance with him. The moment that we just experienced has definitely passed, but I don't know what to make of us now. Are we going to pretend like it never happened? It's not like we can't talk about it with Harriet around; she's six months old. I swing her back and forth in front of me and then plop down on the couch, sitting her on my lap facing me.

"It needs to simmer," I hear Jackson say from the kitchen, and I make an affirmative sound in response. I only hear him in the very back of my mind, I'm much too concentrated on my other thoughts to be present in reality at the moment.

That kiss happened, right? And it was more than just a kiss, too. That was us from years ago; where we'd find each other during slow nights at the hospital and run to an on-call room or even a supply closet. Before marriage and definitely before divorce. I hardly remembered what it felt like to be so caught up in him, and now I don't know if remembering is a good or bad thing. I missed it so much, but now that I have a tiny taste of it, all I want is more. And I'm not sure if I'm going to get that.

Why would he do that? Why would _I_? I scold myself for being so wrapped up in something that I doubt he's even still thinking about. It was a mistake. He's not going to bring it up again. Everything is going to go back to the way it was before; silent, routine nights where we take shifts with the baby and watch the news because it's the only thing on TV that we can both stand. I like Jeopardy and he likes Law  & Order, and there really isn't much of a compromise between those two things.

I take Harriet's hands in my own and vaguely sense Jackson walk into the room behind us. Her eyes track him as he walks around the couch, and I wait for him to sit down on his spot on the opposite end.

He walks past it, though, and gets closer to me. Before I can even ask what he's doing, he collapses onto my cushion; we're so close that our shoulders brush. He looks over, meets my eyes with a glint in his, and asks, "Do you wanna turn on Jeopardy?"


End file.
